Thoughts on Leveling

So I just finished leveling another toon to 85, my dear Holy Paladin, Katilea.
Mostly, Katilea leveled through Dungeoning. I started out as a Protection Paladin, but seeing that the guild she was in had 21545321 Paladin Tanks, I decided to respec to Holy.

It's been a lot of fun, and certainly interesting coming from healing on a Priest, to healing on a Pally. Now, I've leveled every healing class, (My Shaman and Druid are only about level 50) but There is an absolute difference in healing on each of these classes... I've learned that it really sucks to not have a hot to keep rolling on the tank (Even though renew is REALLY BAD for mana during End Game, that doesn't mean I don't use it occasionally anyways)

Since Katilea dungeoned so much, it took me 10 levels (68-78) to get through all of the quests in Howling Fjord. From there, I skipped all of the other zones and went straight to Icecrown, I banged out the last two levels of that expansion very quickly, leaving more to be desired of the 78-80 grind. When I leveled toons throughout Wrath, I enjoyed all of the quests in Icecrown, the different factions, the fantastic storylines, all of it. Katilea didn’t even get to the part where the Arthas quests start. I contemplated staying in Icecrown till I finished, but I decided to move along.

For my 80 questing zone, I started in Vashj’ir. The last time I did Vashj was on Ashe, at the beginning of the expansion… Actually, it was on Day 1. It was gross; there were a thousand people all fighting for the same nodes and quest mobs all in the same place. I’d leveled two toons through Hyjal since then, and there are 4 good pieces of Holy Pally Gear that come from the vendors in Vashj, so that’s where I decided to start. It surprised me how much I’d actually enjoyed leveling there on Katilea. I worked through all the quest lines, finishing the zone about halfway through 83.

By far, my favorite part about Vashj was the Battlemaiden quests. I loved going “back in time” and learning about some of the different things that had been happening. It was a refreshing change of pace from the quests that I had been doing. My other favorite part about Vashj’ir is that all of the questgivers and NPC’s are the same people throughout the zone, making it feel as you’re actually working towards something as a whole. Thank you Capt. Taylor for sticking with me the whole time :)

Next came the time to level in Deepholm. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I knew that it needed to be done so that I could eventually get my shoulder enchant. I got about a bar away from 85 when I’d completed all of the quests out there, and so I jumped in a dungeon to finish up my leveling process. I’d dungeoned enough through the Wrath and Cata Content, that I had enough JP to purchase an item from the Vendors. I’d just picked up a 346 chest piece from Rep, so I decided to get new pants (I’d still been wearing greens at that point, I believe)

I am so lucky to have such good friends! Askevar sent me over the Justice Points boots, while Elennar helped me craft the 346 Relic, and Orvillus helped me craft the 359 Plate belt. By the time all was said and done, I’d dinged 85, put on all of my new shiny gear and walked into Heroics with an average item level of 335.

My “goal” is to get Katilea ready to heal T11 dungeons so that she can join along for VP farming BWD/BoT Runs, So I decided I’d do the Thrall quest line to get the shiny 365 Cloak. Boy, was I mistaken! I’d remembered that it was pretty easy to do on Ashe, but there were probably always 20 other people with me in a zone as I was working on those quests. Katilea got to Uldum to do the Air elementals quest (as ret!), and got her face smashed in. I’d pull one thing, and try to kill it (Stood by Aggra and everything) and I’d suddenly have 3 or 4 more elementals that had decided to gang up on me. I attempted this a few times, not using any AoE abilities, and being very careful to pull only one at a time, but it never did work out. I suppose I’ll go back out there after I have better gear?

From that failure, I went to Hyjal to quest enough to get me to the Molten Front zone, so that I could start out there. The Hyjal quests were easy (as expected), but as soon as I got the quest to go into the Molten Front, and kill the giant elemental dude, I soon realized that I was going to get my face smashed in. There was an elemental with 750K+ Health, and I was the only soul in that Phase, save a few NPC’s. I did manage to complete the quest and kill the elemental, but it probably took me 15 minutes or so!

So that’s where Katilea is now. Able to Start dailies for Molten Front, and able to Heal heroics (but for right now I’ll probably only go with friends). I looked at my screen, and pondered what to do at this particular point, and what did I come up with? Roll another toon.

I’m such an Alt-o-holic.